Headscratchers / The Burnt Part Boys

• How do the kids manage to communicate with the miners, considering that we know for sure that the dads are dead, but (according to Miner Twitchell) the kids aren't dead - 'not yet'? Also, unlike the Alamo heroes, all five kids see all the miners at the same time and not just their respective parents (as evidenced by Dusty being able to talk to both Miner Twitchell and Roy Tinns). The most plausible explanation therefore is that the kids met the ghosts of their fathers, but then how are they able to physically hug them?
• How come the kids never came across their fathers' corpses? Chet recognised the area they got caved in as the area the original accident happened, after all, and Pete did say at the start of the musical that the bodies were still there (although that could have just been what he imagined the mine to be like at the time).
  • It would make sense if they did see the bodies. The shock and emotional trauma of that could have caused them all to imagine their fathers as alive, much like Pete's fantasies which only occur when he's significantly stressed.